American Hunter profiles the new Browning A5.

Release Date: 6/22/2012

In a recent article on American Hunters online edition, Frank Miniter -- a senior editor at American Hunter magazine -- does a detailed review of the new Browning A5. At Browning we always try to listen to Miniter very closely. He shoots straight (literally and figuratively) and that means he can be a great help in product development. So there are a lot of good reasons to read his article. Along the way Miniter has been a personal witness to virtually all the great firearms innovations of the last two decades and his editorial expertise has covered stories around the world on hunting to "manliness." His bio found on his website details his experience:

"Miniter has written for Forbes, National Review, American Thinker, Human Events, American Hunter, Outdoor Life, The Washington Times, Washington Examiner, and many other publications on constitutional rights and other issues . . . [he] is also the author of The New York Times’ Bestseller The Ultimate Man’s Survival Guide, Recovering the Lost Art of Manhood. He has floated the Amazon, run with the bulls of Pamplona, hunted everything from bear in Russia to elk with the Apache to kudu in the Kalahari and has fly-fished everywhere from Alaska’s Kenai to Scotland’s River Spey to Japan’s freestone streams. Along the way he was taught to box by Floyd Patterson, spelunked into Pompey’s Cave, climbed the Gunks, and graduated from the oldest private military academy (Norwich University) in the U.S."

This Browning overview contains a few excerpts from the article which ran in the June 2012 issue of American Hunter Magazine. The headline to the online story sums up Miniter's reaction to the new A5 from Browning:

"The features include a kinematic action that is inertia operated,
unlike your papa's recoil-operated A5."

He is certainly correct on that point. Below are a few excerpts from the story which can be read in its entirety on American Hunter Magazine, online edition.

"My grandfather didn’t own a Browning A5, nor did my father. But my friend’s did. I remember comparing my Remington 870 Wingmaster—a well-used shotgun my father gave me when I was 14 years old—to the Browning A5. Even then I thought the A5’s “humpback” design was distinctive, cool looking and, even at that impressionable age, I knew the gun was backed by a reputation of reliability. That impression came flooding back to me at an unveiling of the new Browning A5 at a writer’s seminar in South Dakota.

“But wait,” said Scott Grange, Browning’s director of public relations, “this isn’t your grandfather’s A5.” He wasn’t kidding—that phrase has now become the company’s slogan.

"This shotgun would please John Moses Browning’s innovative spirit. This incarnation of the Auto-5 no longer has the long-recoil (recoiling barrel) system of the classic A5. It has a new short-recoil system. Named the “Kinematic Drive System,” its engineering is very similar to Benelli’s Inertia Driven action.

"The Browning A5 was the first mass-produced semi-automatic shotgun. The name of the shotgun was derived from the fact it was designed to be an autoloader that had a capacity of five shots—four in the magazine and one in the chamber. Designed by John Moses Browning in 1898 and patented in 1900 . . ."

The Frank Miniter A5 Article is copyright American Hunter Magazine, 2012, and excerpts are used by Browning with permission. Miniter's bio is from his own website http://www.frankminiter.com/ copyright 2012.

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